Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Price to kill a pastor is $250, in Orissa


Money, food and alcohol are being offered by Hindu extremist groups to people willing to murder Christians and destroy their homes.

This violence is not new to Orissa, India where India’s Communist Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs since August.  This figure is twelve times greater than official government claims of only 40 homicides. 

The stakes are higher now and pastors have a bounty on their heads.  Chairman of Good News India, Faiz Rahman said Hindu militants are targeting Christian leaders according to the Christian Post.  “The going price to kill a pastor is $250,” he said.

Rahman told the UK based Release International, “All of the pastors are high value targets.”  “We’ve got to get them out of the refugee camps.”  more 

Friday, November 21, 2008

Call to observe Aug. 25 as "Indian Christian Martyrs Day"

INDIA  Ecumenical Group Calls For Indian Christian Martyrs' Day
November 20, 2008  |  IC06165.1524  |  427 words     Text size  

JABALPUR, India (UCAN) -- A Christian group in central India has called for Aug. 25 to be observed as "Indian Christian martyrs day" to honor Christians killed recently in Orissa state.

According to Madhya Pradesh Isai Mahasangh (grand assembly of Madhya Pradesh Christians), the ecumenical group in Madhya Pradesh state that made the demand, Aug. 25 was the day Hindu radicals killed the most Christians in Orissa.

The exact number of fatalities is not yet known, but available reports indicate at least 59 Christians perished in seven weeks of anti-Christian violence in that eastern state. The violence that also destroyed thousands of Christian homes and more than 100 Church properties including churches, and displaced around 50,000 Christians began on Aug. 24, the day after a Hindu religious leader and four associates were gunned down in Orissa. Maoists claimed responsibility for the assassination.

Some independent groups that toured Orissa in October put the number of Christians killed at more than 500.

On Nov. 9, about 200 members of the Madhya Pradesh ecumenical group met in the state capital of Bhopal, 745 kilometers south of New Delhi, to review the status of Christians in India.

Their resolution says establishing the martyrs' day will help the Indian Church remember Orissa Christians' "great sacrifices" for the universal Church.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal welcomed the group's suggestion and said the Orissa victims' "supreme sacrifice is admirable."

The prelate, who heads the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, commended the Orissa Christians for preferring death to giving up their faith. He also pointed out that such sacrifice disproved the allegation that missioners converted people through allurement, force and other illegal means.  more

NDTV: Christians Attacked, Arrested in Maharashtra

EFI NEWS:Christians Attacked, Arrested in Maharashtra and Karnataka

EFI NEWS:Christians Attacked, Arrested in Maharashtra and Karnataka November 18, 2008: Pastor, Believers attacked in Maharashtra A mob of about 20 Hindu Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Shiv Sena on November 15 accused a pastor of forced conversion, stripped and beat him up till he felt unconscious in Bhayander, Mumbai, Maharashtra. According to EFI source, at around 12:30 p.m., the extremists barged into the Church of God shouting slogans “Jai Hind, Jai Maharashtra”, vandalized the church and assaulted Pastor Philip Fernandez. They beat up the pastor till he felt unconscious and 20 believers who were attending the prayer meeting were also confined. The NDTV, a national television channel, telecast the incident on Sunday. The extremists also falsely accused the Christians of distributing gospel tracts whereas the believers were giving out flyers for a peace convention to be held. The police have arrested 15 attackers under Section 143,147,148,149,451,427 and 323 of the Indian Penal code.  more

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Christians continue to be arrested in Karnataka

Christians continue to be arrested in Karnataka

Ten Christians run in state elections in Madhya Pradesh

For the first time ten Christians will run in state elections in Madhya Pradesh. One of them is Xavier Meda, a Tribal Christian who is trying to get elected in the Jhabua district. Meda, 32, talked to AsiaNews about his decision.  “Incidents caused by Hindu fundamentalist violence against Christians are routine in Jhabua,” he said. “I have two small children and the future of our young generations needs to be secured. The majority community treats Tribal Christians with scorn and disdain and this has to end. For this to happen we must have our own voice in the [state] assembly to seek justice and rights for Christians, not only in Jhabua but throughout Madhya Pradesh and across the whole of India. This is one of the priorities in my election manifesto.”  The Madhya Pradesh Isai Mahasangh (MPIM) made Meda’s candidacy and that of nine other Christians possible. He is also the organisation’s deputy chairman. more

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Raped nun appears before police

Sify News
Tuesday, 18 November , 2008, 21:53
 
Bhubaneswar: The nun who was allegedly raped during communal violence in Kandhamal in Orissa on Tuesday recorded her statement with Orissa police in Delhi. However, she is unlikely to attend the much-awaited test identification parade (TIP) of the accused persons scheduled to be held on Wednesday.
''Both the nun and Father Thomas Chelan appeared before the crime branch team in Delhi and recorded their statements in connection with the rape and other incidents this afternoon,'' Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archbishop Raphael Cheenath said.
The nun would not be able to reach Baliguda in Kandhamal from Delhi in such a short period of time to attend test identification parade. It required at least six hours by car to reach Baliguda from here and it was not practically possible for her to be present for the TIP, he said.  more 

Rajya Sabha Member BALBIR K. PUNJ against Christians

Who killed the 84-year-old swami? Sabyasachi Panda, the Maoist leader who owned up to the killing, said the swami was eliminated for reviving Brahminism. Strangely, Panda turned a blind eye to evangelism. But he divulged an interesting fact—that the Christian Panas (an SC group) provides cadres to the Maoists in Orissa.  I for one don't know how to reconcile evangelism, which believes in the harvesting of souls, with Maoism, which believes there's no soul. In Europe, wherever Communism succeeded, the Church had to go underground, if not disappear. But in Orissa, perhaps there is some kind of 'strategic alliance' happening. Did the Church outsource the swami's assassination?  Now to the alleged rape of a nun in Kandhamal. Such 'Rape of nun by Hindu fascist' stories have turned out to be false in Jhabua, Jajjhar and Baripada in the past.Unfortunately, by then the 'hot story' had gone cold for the media. We are witnessing another edition of this in Kandhamal. The nun would not attend the identification parade, the SC ruled out a CBI inquiry, but the National Commission for Minorities still jumped into the fray. Is the nun a pawn in the church's game of chess?   read it all 

Central Ministers Sharad Pawar, Meira Kumar, P.R. Kyndiah visit Christian relief camp in Raikia

Central Ministers visit Kandhamal

Special Correspondent, The Hindu

BHUBANESWAR: A three-member team of Central Ministers on Tuesday visited Orissa’s Kandhamal district to take stock of the situation in the areas affected by communal violence. The team advised the administration to hasten the peace process in the riot-hit district.

The team that comprised Union Agriculture Minister , Social Justice Minister Meira Kumar and Tribal Affairs Minister P.R. Kyndiah visited a relief camp in Raikia and spoke to Christian families living there since August.

Most of those with whom the Ministers interacted expressed their willingness to return to their homes but said they were still at the camp as they apprehended attacks from the majority community.

The Ministers also inspected the facilities at the camp. The refugees handed over a memorandum listing various demands, including measures to restore peace.  more

Sunday, November 16, 2008

K.N.Panikkar on UPA's Soft communalist agenda

Elaborating further on the theoretical analysis of Hindutva as fascism, noted historian K.N.Panikkar spoke about how the Hindutva agenda is now being advanced not so much by communal riots, as in the past, but by what he termed as 'organized attacks on Muslims and Christians, amounting to genocide', often in complicity with agents of the state. Earlier, he said, communal riots were largely localized affairs, but now these organized attacks are happening simultaneously in different parts of the country, particularly in states ruled by the BJP or by coalitions in which the BJP is a major partner. In other words, he said, 'There is a convergence between the state and Hindutva fascist organizations since the state promotes or allows these attacks'.

These well-planned attacks on Muslims and Christians, Prof. Panikkar pointed out, are characterized by far greater brutality than previously, and no effective action is taken against their perpetrators, whether by the Central or state governments. He indicated that although the present Government in the Centre had come to power on what it had touted as a 'secular' platform, it has taken no effective action against Hindutva terrorism. In this way, he argued, 'There is no fundamental difference between the present UPA Government and the previous BJP-dominated NDA Government vis-à-vis fascism. The only distinction is that while the latter was aggressively communal, the former appears passively communal. But both allow and create spaces for fascism to advance'. In the last four years of Congress-led rule, he noted, groups like the RSS, the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and their allied social and cultural outfits have made rapid inroads across the country, 'so much so that today there is hardly a village in India where they do not operate'. He also argued that many of the terror attacks and bomb blasts that have occurred in India in recent years might have been orchestrated by Hindutva groups in order to justify attacks on Muslims and Christians, whip up Hindu sentiments and thereby consolidate their vote-bank.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Christians arrested in Bangalore for conducting Prayer visits

Christians arrested in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Chandrashekar (54), Sandhya (45) and Kamalamma (43) are residents of Benson Town and Banasvadi. They are members of Pavithra Agni Church, Cox Town, Bangalore. Chandrashekar's wife Dr. Leelavathy is a highly placed official in the state government.

At 7.30 pm on 12th November 2008 Chandrashekar, Sandhya and Kamalamma were visiting Gayathri and Parvathi, residents in Doddigunta near Cox Town, who were sick, prayed for them, and left.

As they were returning, a group of 20 persons belonging to the radical Hindutva group the RSS, accosted them and alleged they were involved in forceful conversion. They snatched the Christians' bags and subjected them to verbal abuse. Then they contacted the Frazer Town Police station, and at once the police arrived in a jeep and took the three persons to the Police Station (this is against the law as women are not supposed to be take to police stations after sunset). They filed an FIR under section IPC 295A and 298. Later Sandhya and Kamalamma were sent to Ladies remand Room at 11.30 pm. Chandrashekar was detained in the police station and on the morning of 13th Nov he was sent to Jail.

more

another report

Secular media is doing a far better job than Christian media in covering peresecution

Christians are facing increasing amounts of persecution in India. Hundreds have been killed and thousands displaced in the most recent violence.

In Iraq, Christians have left the country because of the violence they're facing. The list goes on and on. Sadly, however, many Christians in the west aren't concerned about it, says Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs, Canada.

He's been pleased by the secular coverage. "Groups like BBC, CNN and Fox [have] been actually covering the persecution in Orissa very well. In fact, recently I wrote a blog on this subject as to who's really silent. I really think that in some regards, the secular media is doing a far better job than some of the Christian media."

"[For] many Christian radio stations and television stations, that's not a big part of their mandate. It's either playing music or sermons. Also, part of the problem is that, as a rule, Christian leaders in North America very rarely say very much about persecution."

More and more radio, television and newspapers are giving more attention to local events rather than world events. Penner thinks that's true of many churches, too. "We're very interested and preoccupied with reaching out in our own neighborhoods for Christ, which is laudable. But at the same time, we forget our obligations to the world."  more

Orissa bishops ask the Government to rebuild the churches before Christmas

Orissa bishops warn state leader of ‘master plan’ to wipe out Christianity
Archbishop Raphael Cheenath

.- Denouncing what they called a “master plan” to wipe out Christianity, the bishops of India’s troubled Orissa region have written a letter to state’s Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik concerning the persecution of Christians at the hands of Hindu extremists.

The bishops challenged characterizations of the anti-Christian attacks as an ethnic conflict:

“Hindu Fundamentalist groups have been trying to name the communal violence as an Ethnic Conflict between the Tribals and the Pano Christians. A cursory look at facts reveals that this conflict is a calculated and pre-planned master plan to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal district, Orissa, in order to realize the hidden agenda of Sangh Parivar of establishing a Hindu Nation.”

This agenda has allegedly been furthered by concealing the fact that the attack victims were Christians.

The bishops expressed happiness that the Orissa government has decided to establish a Fast Track Court at Kandhamal to expedite the trials of cases related to the violence.  In addition, the bishops requested that the judge of the court should be from a religion other than Hindu or Christian.

Continuing their requests, the bishops asked that the presence of national police in Kandhamal be extended until the parliamentary and assembly elections in Orissa are concluded, citing the State Police’s low numbers and inability to defend themselves.

Finally,  to allow Christmas preparations to begin and spiritual traditions to be observed.

“This will also help confidence building among the congregations and bury the past quietly as they approach Christmas 2008,” their letter concluded.  

more

Monday, November 10, 2008

“Sangh Parivar trying to wipe out Christianity’




Special Correspondent, The Hindu
BHUBANESWAR: A delegation of Christian organisations of Orissa met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday and told him that the Sangh Parivar was “trying to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal district.”
The team which met Mr. Patnaik at the State Secretariat said “fundamentalist forces were trying to name the communal violence as ethnic conflict between the tribals and Dalit Christians.”
The victims of the attacks were Christians, it said.
The Church representatives, led by Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Raphael Cheenath, said the claim that those leaving the relief camps in Kandhamal were going back to their own villages and settling down in their homes was not true.
Most of the Christian families that had left the relief camps in the riot-hit district had migrated to relief camps in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur and other places and also settled down in rented houses and in the homes of their relatives and friends, they said in a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister.
A large number of Christians of Kandhamal had gone to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Gujarat, they added.

Hindutva terrorists setting India on Fire!!!

Setting India on Fire!!! Violence against Christians / minorities "It is a matter of deep humiliation to confess that we are a house divided against itself, that we Hindus and Mussulmans are flying at one another. It is a matter of still deeper humiliation that we Hindus regard several million of our own kith and kin as too degraded even for our touch." M.K. Gandhi`s address to the US through Columbia Broadcasting System in 1930s: Such discrimination, as noted by Gandhi himself, forced many Dalits to convert to Islam, Budhism and Christianity, in the hope of gaining some social standing in the society that refuses to consider them human otherwise. But the VHP led Hindu right took this to be an unforgivable sin. To abandon their religion and that too for Islam outraged the hardliners to the core. The VHP saw this as a serious threat to its notion of Hinduism. India, the world`s largest secular democracy is everything but that. This rhetoric sounds good but only for so long. It becomes nauseating when this hypocrisy takes such toll that humans are openly butchered in the streets while the government prides itself to be a representative of those very people. more

On 2nd November 2008 regular worship was going on, at noon some policemen from Bagalkot TownPolice station arrived and asked the pastor to call off the prayer meeting immediately. He was warned not to conduct any meeting without the prior permission from D.C. The police officials also collected personal details of 25 persons who were attending the worship.

Basappa Adapur has been Pastor for the past 10 years of Shalom Full Gospel Association in Bagalkot district. He also manages Orphanage called Shalom Girls Boarding Home, Bagalkot.

Pastor Basappa had been targetted in an assault on 27th July 2008, during which even innocent children present in the church were not spared: miscreants pushed a 4-year old child to the wall causing severe injuries. Five other Christians, all women and children, also sustained serious injuries: the Pastor's wife Renuka (38), daughters Krupa(16) Manjula(15) and two orphans Yellamma (13) and Sudha (12) were injured in the assault. All of them underwent medical treatment at the Keruddi Hospital in Bagalkot.

Pastor Basappa has written to the District Administrator, the Governor and also GCIC requesting protection and preservation of thier human rights. source

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Believers arrested under forced conversion charges

POSTED: 7 NOVEMBER, 2008

orissamap.jpg

India (MNN) ― Four Christian relief workers were beaten, threatened and then arrested in Orissa on Tuesday, November 4. The World Evangelical Alliance says the four were arrested under "forced conversion" charges.

The workers were on their way to the Discipleship Centre (which focuses on holistic care, education, health care and similar disaster relief projects) when an unknown motorist collided with one of their motorbikes, causing minor injuries to the worker.

A crowd gathered around the scene, quickly turning into a group of 400. The mob beat the DC staff members, threatening to set fire to them at a local cremation centre. Included in the mob were two Hindu groups that had already been protesting against what they perceived to be forced conversions from local Christians.

When police arrived, the workers were arrested for supposedly forcing Christian conversions and causing the motorbike accident. The four are currently in the custody of Orissa police.

The outlandish charges against the four seem to be characteristic of much of the persecution in India. Pray that these Christians would be released soon and would stand firm in their faith regardless of false accusations.   source

Friday, November 7, 2008

Creating fear: A Hindu Interpretation of Christian mission in India

Evangelists are playing long-term chess game

by

Balbir K. Punj

.......................

India has a long history of Hindu-Muslim riots but little record of Hindu-Christian violence. Thus violence in Kandhamal and Mangalore would appear extraordinary. The devil lies in details, but the national media conveniently locates it in the RSS, VHP and the Bajrang Dal. Actually, it is evangelism that provokes a violent reaction from local people.

Evangelism, or bringing heathens to Christian faith, might sound a throwback to the colonial era, if not the Middle Ages. Yet we have to countenance it (like we have to countenance jihad, a 7th century Arabic concept) in the independent India of the 21st century. Money and flab, it is said, show even if you try to hide them. Just surf through television channels and you will find the evangelical flab. Let alone dedicated evangelical channels, evangelical capsules of Joyce Meyer and Paul Dinakaran occupy time slots on most private channels. No wonder this has come about in the last four years of the UPA government. How else could DD Punjabi/Jalandhar, DD NE/Guwahati or DD Malayalam — national carriers of a secular country — show explicit evangelical content by Joyce Meyer, neatly dubbed and subtitled in the language of those channels? What the MoU is between the soldiers of Christ and the I&B ministry of a "secular" government needs to be investigated.

The Church in India claims that the demographic share of Christians in India has declined to 2.5 per cent. Is such a vast telegospel project meant to serve the needs of this minuscule community? Census 2001, however, shows an abnormally steep rise in the Christian population in various states (Goa and Kerala are surprising exceptions) between 1991 and 2001.

The British rule was farthest from theocracy but it offered a certain leeway to evangelical clout. "In the 10 years, 1921-1931, the population of India has increased by 10 per cent; the Christian Church has increased by 32 per cent.

The Church has doubled its number in the 20th century. Christian work is being carried on in every province, and in almost all the larger Indian states," wrote Stephen Neill, warden of the Diocesan Theological College, Tinnevelly, in his 1936 book Builders of the Indian Church. But independent India has outdone it all. The Northeast, where evangelical penetration was least during British rule, has become almost wholly Christian during independent India.

Christian missionaries are viewed as people who have done wonderful work in the field of education, health and philology. Orientalist and humanist Reverend James Long (1814-1887) of Calcutta was such a revered name. But recently I was shocked to read in his book Handbook of Bengal Mission, (1948) in connection with the Church of England, what this illustrious scholar of Sanskrit, Bengali and Persian had to say on the Himalayas that Hindus view as the abode of gods: "Every valley has its spirit and every hill its demon, and the heaven-springing pinnacles of snow are tin; temples of gods of terror and vengeance, who must be appeased by painful pilgrimages… Many had recruited their exhausted spirits, reinvigorated their bodily powers by breathing the pure air of the rugged Himalaya fastnesses, and indulged their curiosity by penetrating into these magnificent regions; but few thought of the moral darkness and deformity that reign in those regions of natural light and beauty".

James Long's period, i.e. 19th century, was also the time when many non-evangelical Western Orientalists did great work to exhume India's heritage through philology, archaeology and numismatics. But James Long's evangelical streak exposes his essential antipathy to heathen India despite his excellent mannerism. If it had happened to Long, today's shortbrained evangelists would scarcely be immune. In the 19th century, the ecclesiastical career still attracted many brilliant minds in the West. But in the 21st century, when there are so many white-collar career opportunities, only those who can't make it elsewhere join the evangelical brigade. Today's evangelists are not qualified to join Microsoft, Intel or Nasa. It is only the Church, ironically built in the name of Nazarene, that seems flushed with money to offer them a career. Look at the Joshua Project (www.joshuaproject.net) that aims at "Christianisation of India".

The evangelists are playing a long-term chess game in India. How evangelists dupe people is exemplified by the story of Italian Robert di Nobili, who came to India in 1605. His story is related by Charles Henry Robinson, a top missionary, in his 1915 book History of Christian Missions. "Having determined to make himself an Indian, in order he might win the Indians, he adopted the dress and the sacred thread of a brahmin, and painted sandalwood on his fore head… He called himself a raja from Rome and eventually produced a new veda, which he himself had forged, in support of his teaching. He kept aloof from men belonging to low castes and only allowed the brahmins, or men of high caste, to have access to him. The principle which underlay his action was sanctioned by a papal bull in 1623 which declared that "out of compassion for human weakness, Nobili's converts are permitted to retain the plait of hair, the brahminical thread, the sandalwood sign on the forehead, and the customary ablutions of their caste". Christian missionaries turned their eyes to tribals and dalits only after they failed to cut much ice with the upper castes. Their love for India has proved to be more dangerous than their hate. India must wake up to these ecclesiastical commandos who make deception their chief weapon.

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Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity ? by Dr Gezim Alpion

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Book CoverMarking 20th anniversary of its foundation the Faculty of the Sciences of Communication is organizing a conference  on his book

Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity at the Salesian Pontifical University Rome.

The conference scheduled for Thursday 20th Novemberwill be in English with Italian translation. Open to all, the programme will start at 4.30 pm and will conclude at 6.45 pm.

 

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was undoubtedly one of the great personalities of the twentieth century. The author explores her significance to the mass media, to celebrity culture, to the church and to various political and national groups.

 

Albanian born Gëzim Alpion currently director of Research Postgraduate Studies, Department of Sociology (Birmingham University) received a PhD from the University of Durham, UK, in 1997. His works include Vouchers(2001), Foreigner Complex (2002), If Only the Dead Could Listen (2006), andEncounters with Civilizations (2008).